Documenta Praehistorica XXXVIII

Neolithic Studies 18

Abstract

The Eneolithic period witnessed a technological breakthrough of a significance comparable to that of the technological revolution in historical times, accompanied by a matching revolution in social and economic relationships. This transition no doubt led also to the creation of new and momentous metaphors, which in their turn triggered new senses and planes of communication. It goes without saying that the Eneolithic technology that had the greatest potential for metaphors promoting new ways of looking at the world was metallurgy. Nevertheless, before Eneolithic communities came to fully appreciate the properties of metal, many of their number resorted to an idiosyncratic flint technology to produce macrolithic implements. It seems that the production and exchange of macrolithic artefacts led to the development of a new vocabulary and grammar that served, among other things, to describe the social inequalities discernible in Eneolithic communities.